The appointment of Rosecrans came too late to affect the October elections. After the November votes were in, the president expressed regret that he had not replaced Buell earlier. Meanwhile, Old Rosy dithered in Nashville, and by late November the president had lost patience with him. Halleck informed the general that Lincoln was “greatly dissatisfied” and “has repeated to me time and again that there were imperative reasons why the enemy should be driven across the Tennessee River at the earliest possible moment.”126 The general-in-chief warned Rosecrans that twice already he had “been asked to designate some one else to command your army. If you remain one more week at Nashville, I cannot prevent your removal. … [T]he Government demands action.”127 But the headstrong, argumentative Rosecrans stayed put until December 26, when he finally moved to expel Braxton Bragg’s army from central Tennessee.
Controlling the Mississippi River
Lincoln also appointed another general to an important command in the West—John A. McClernand, his old political opponent from Illinois. In September, McClernand had proposed recruiting an army with which he would capture Vicksburg and seize control of the Mississippi River. Eager to have prominent Democrats support the war and raise troops, especially in his own state, Lincoln gave the scheme his blessing, for he believed that the Mississippi was “the backbone of the Rebellion” and “the key to the whole situation.” The war, he said, “can never be brought to a close until that key is in our pocket.”128 Since the campaign against the Confederate citadel would involve both the army and the navy, Lincoln summoned Admiral David Dixon Porter and asked his advice about naming a general to command it. When Porter suggested Grant or Sherman, Lincoln replied that McClernand would be “the very person for the business.” After calling on McClernand at the president’s suggestion, Porter concluded that he was foolish and promptly departed for Illinois without reporting back to the White House. In a memoir, Porter declared: “I do not suppose that so great a piece of folly was ever before committed” as the appointment of McClernand.129 He was right. Halleck and Stanton shared Porter’s view.
In fact, Lincoln had some reservations about McClernand; he told Chase that the general was “brave and capable, but too desirous to be independent of every body else.”130 That drawback would later cause serious complications. Yet in December 1862, Lincoln declared that he wanted the general to command the expedition and pledged to sustain, strengthen, and stand by him. That month the president alluded to the McClernand plan, saying “that the whole energies of the Government were now devoted to opening the Mississippi river.”131 To facilitate that campaign, Lincoln decided to replace Benjamin F. Butler, who had been in charge at New Orleans since David Farragut had captured the city in April. Butler caused problems for Union diplomacy by antagonizing foreign consuls in the Crescent City. In addition, his heavy-handed tactics in dealing with the local population, as well as his rumored corruption, had discouraged the growth of Unionist sentiment. Earlier, Butler had exasperated Lincoln by quarreling with Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew about recruiting in the Bay State. (Apropos of this controversy, the president remarked that “Butler was cross eyed and he supposed he didn’t see things as other people did.”)132 When the president met the governor’s wife in January 1862, he asked: “Well, how does your Husband & Butler get on—has the Governor commissioned those men yet?”
When Mrs. Andrew hesitated, her escort replied: “We are informed Sir that you have commissioned them.”
“No,” said Lincoln, “but I am getting mad with the Governor & Butler both.”
When Mrs. Andrew remarked that the president did not appear especially angry, he replied: “No, I don’t ever get fighting mad, no how.”133
The president explained to a young lieutenant why he had long hesitated to move against Butler: “I don’t know what to do with General Butler. He gives me more trouble than any general in the army; and yet should I deprive him of command, I should have the State of Massachusetts and the whole of New England down upon me.”134 Lincoln also had to worry about Radical Republicans elsewhere who admired the Massachusetts general’s “contraband” policy and his recruitment of black troops in Louisiana. When Illinois Congressman Isaac N. Arnold protested against the removal of Butler from command, Lincoln gently but firmly urged his old friend to be more understanding: “I am compelled to take a more impartial and unprejudiced view of things. Without claiming to be your superior, which I do not, my position enables me to understand my duty in all these matters better than you possibly can, and I hope you do not yet doubt my integrity.”135
In response to popular pressure, Lincoln offered to restore Butler to command in New Orleans, but the general balked because the department had too few troops. When Butler asked why more could not be provided, Lincoln reportedly answered: “We haven’t them to give.”
“Then why don’t you raise more—put the draft in New York!—raise that forty thousand who should have been raised in that state last fall!”
“Mr. Seymour says it will not do to draft in New York.”
“Then I would draft Seymour!” Butler exclaimed.136
As the president and his advisors took their time considering alternative assignments for him, Butler grew impatient and finally “told them all to go to h[el]l” and returned to Massachusetts.137
To take Butler’s place, Lincoln chose another Massachusetts politico, Nathaniel P. Banks, who was informed by Halleck that the president “regards the opening of the Mississippi river as the first and most important of all our military & naval operations, and it is hoped that you will not lose a moment in accomplishing it.”138 Controlling the Father of Waters, said the general-in-chief, “is worth to us forty Richmonds.”139 The administration decided to focus on the river partly in response to the electoral setbacks of the fall. Indiana Governor Oliver P. Morton warned Lincoln that the “fate of the North-West is trembling in the balance. The result of the late elections admonishes all who understand its import that not an hour is to be lost.” The region, so dependent on the commercial artery of the Mississippi, might decide to cast its lot with the South.140
Confederate fortresses at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Port Hudson, Louisiana, posed the main obstacles to securing the Mississippi. Lincoln envisioned a three-pronged campaign: from New Orleans, Banks would move north toward Port Hudson; McClernand would move south toward Vicksburg; and a fleet of gunboats under Admiral David Dixon Porter would attack Confederate strongholds along the river. Where Grant would fit in was unclear. Lincoln and Stanton’s failure to consult with Halleck and Grant about this campaign laid the groundwork for later confusion, for it was unclear just who would be in overall charge. Grant should have been given command of this campaign, for he was a professional soldier who had achieved significant victories. Halleck objected to political generals like Banks and McClernand, complaining that “political power over-rules all military considerations.” The general-in-chief lamented: “How long the president will submit to this dictation is uncertain. He must either put it down, or it will sink him so low that the last trump of Gabriel will never reach his ears!”141
Defending Himself: Analyzing Political Reverses
Other factors aside from military stalemate contributed to the Republican reverses that fall, most notably the president’s September 24 proclamation suspending the writ of habeas corpus nationwide, thus empowering the military to arrest civilians who discouraged enlistments, resisted the militia draft, or were “guilty of any disloyal practice.” Along with the Emancipation Proclamation, the suspension of habeas corpus provided the Democrats with their most effective ammunition during the election campaign. John W. Forney had warned that “altho’ the President’s two last proclamations have aroused the wildest feelings of enthusiasm among our true friends, yet at the same time they increase the responsibilities and dangers of the administration. The Federal power must be felt at once in every Congressional district in the loyal states or we may lose the next House of Representatives.”
142 Even some Republicans objected to the suspension. Maryland’s Henry Winter Davis said it instituted “court martial despotism.”143 Many Midwestern party leaders, however, thought it just as important and effective a war measure as the Emancipation Proclamation.
Lincoln was widely blamed for the party’s dismal showing. “It is hard to say a hard word of your friends, but it is the simple truth that the President is responsible for the political disasters in the West,” remarked the National Anti-Slavery Standard.144 In an editorial titled “The Vote of Want of Confidence,” the New York Times declared that the “very qualities which have made Abraham Lincoln so well liked in private life—his trustful disposition, his kindheartedness, his concern for fair play, his placidity of temper—in a manner unfit him for the stern requirements of deadly war. Quick, sharp, summary dealings don’t suit him at all. He is all the while haunted with the fear of doing some injustice, and is ever easy to accept explanations.” He lacked “the old Jacksonian passion” and “the high sacred vehemence, inspired by the consciousness of infinite interests at stake, and infinite responsibilities.” The people demand that he end the “indecision and procrastination and general feebleness which, from the beginning thus far, have marked military operations, for which he is ultimately responsible.”145 George Bancroft denounced Lincoln as “ignorant, self-willed” and “surrounded by men, some of whom are as ignorant as himself.”146 Among those close to Lincoln who came in for the most vigorous censure were the heads of both military and civilian departments. “As a whole, the Cabinet has been a sad failure, and so has been our generalship,” remarked Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. “And when the people voted, or declined to vote, they did so as much in opposition to the one as the other.”147
General Carl Schurz scolded the president, alleging that the “defeat of the Administration is the Administration’s own fault” because it “placed the Army, now a great power in this Republic, into the hands of its enemy’s.” Democratic generals, unenthusiastic about the war’s aims, had failed to deliver victories. “Let us be commanded by Generals whose heart is in the war, and only by such,” Schurz urged. “Let every General who does not show himself strong enough to command success, be deposed at once. Let every trust of power be accompanied by a corresponding responsibility, and all may be well yet.”148 (In fact, McClellan and Buell both opposed emancipation. Buell thought liberated slaves would prove a military nuisance.)
After numerous critics made points like Schurz’s, Lincoln took that general’s letter as the occasion to reply to them all. He argued that three factors caused the Republican setback: “1. The democrats were left in a majority by our friends going to the war. 2. The democrats observed this & determined to re-instate themselves in power, and 3. Our newspaper’s, by vilifying and disparaging the administration, furnished them all the weapons to do it with. Certainly, the ill-success of the war had much to do with this.”
The president explained to Schurz that he had distributed military patronage to Democrats because “very few of our friends had a military education or were of the profession of arms. It would have been a question whether the war should be conducted on military knowledge, or on political affinity, only that our own friends (I think Mr. Schurz included) seemed to think that such a question was inadmissable. Accordingly I have scarcely appointed a democrat to a command, who was not urged by many republicans and opposed by none. It was so as to McClellan. He was first brought forward by the Republican Governor of Ohio, & claimed, and contended for at the same time by the Republican Governor of Pennsylvania. I received recommendations from the republican delegations in congress, and I believe every one of them recommended a majority of democrats. But, after all many Republicans were appointed; and I mean no disparagement to them when I say I do not see that their superiority of success has been so marked as to throw great suspicion on the good faith of those who are not Republicans.”149
The egotistical Schurz replied impertinently: “I fear you entertain too favorable a view of the causes of our defeat in the elections.” He denied Lincoln’s major points and insisted that unsuccessful generals were retained in command too long. “Was I really wrong in saying that the principal management of the war had been in the hands of your opponents?” Schurz asked. “Or will perhaps anybody assert, that such men as McClellan and Buell and Halleck have the least sympathy with you or your views and principles?” Republican generals were never given a fair chance to prove themselves, he charged. Like a schoolmaster chastising a recreant pupil, Schurz lectured the president: “let us indulge in no delusions as to the true causes of our defeat in the elections. The people, so enthusiastic at the beginning of the war, had made enormous sacrifices. Hundreds of millions were spent, thousands of lives were lost apparently for nothing. The people had sown confidence and reaped disaster and disappointment. They wanted a change, and as an unfortunate situation like ours is apt to confuse the minds of men, they sought it in the wrong direction. I entreat you, do not attribute to small incidents, as the enlisting of Republican voters in the army and the attack of the press, what is a great historical event. It is best that you, and you more than anybody else in this Republic, should see the fact in its true light and appreciate its significance: the result of the elections was a most serious and severe reproof administered to the Administration. Do not refuse to listen to the voice of the people. Let it not become too true what I have heard said; that of all places in this country it is Washington where public opinion is least heard, and of all places in Washington the White House.”
Schurz self-righteously claimed that he, as a general, had special moral authority to criticize the president: “the spectacle of war is apt to awaken solemn and serious feelings in the heart of one who has some sympathy with his fellow beings. I command a few thousands of brave and good fellows, entitled to life and happiness just as well as the rest of us; and when I see their familiar faces around the campfires and think of it, that to-morrow they may be called upon to die,—to die for a cause which for this or that reason is perhaps doomed to fail, and thus to die in vain;—and when I hear the wailings of so many widows and orphans, and remember the scenes of heart-rending misery and desolation I have already witnessed—and then think of a possibility, that all this may be for nothing,—then, I must confess, my heart begins sometimes to sink within me and to quail under what little responsibility I have in this business. I do not know, whether you have ever seen a battlefield. I assure you, Mr. President, it is a terrible sight.”150
Taking understandable umbrage at Schurz’s lecture, the president sent a crushing rebuke: “I certainly know that if the war fails, the administration fails, and that I will be blamed for it, whether I deserve it or not. And I ought to be blamed, if I could do better. You think I could do better; therefore you blame me already. I think I could not do better; therefore I blame you for blaming me. I understand you now to be willing to accept the help of men, who are not republicans, provided they have ‘heart in it.’ Agreed. I want no others. But who is to be the judge of hearts, or of ‘heart in it’? If I must discard my own judgment, and take yours, I must also take that of others; and by the time I should reject all I should be advised to reject, I should have none left, republicans, or others—not even yourself. For, be assured, my dear sir, there are men who have ‘heart in it’ that think you are performing your part as poorly as you think I am performing mine. I certainly have been dissatisfied with the slowness of Buell and McClellan; but before I relieved them I had great fears I should not find successors to them, who would do better; and I am sorry to add, that I have seen little since to relieve those fears. I do not clearly see the prospect of any more rapid movements. I fear we shall at last find out that the difficulty is in our case, rather than in particular generals. I wish to disparage no one—certainly not those who sympathize with me; but I must say I need success more than I need sympathy, and that I have not seen the so much greater evidence of getting success from my sympathizers, than from those w
ho are denounced as the contrary. It does seem to me that in the field the two classes have been very much alike, in what they have done, and what they have failed to do. In sealing their faith with their blood, [Edward D.] Baker, an[d] [Nathaniel] Lyon, and [Henry] Bohlen, and [Israel B.] Richardson, republicans, did all that men could do; but did they any more than [Philip] Kearney, and [Isaac I.] Stevens, and [Jesse L.] Reno, and [Joseph K. F.] Mansfield, none of whom were republicans, and some, at least of whom, have been bitterly, and repeatedly, denounced to me as secession sympathizers? I will not perform the ungrateful task of comparing cases of failure.”151
Lincoln had chosen many Democrats as generals in order to win the support of their party, without which the war effort was doomed. Though several of them proved inept in the field (e.g., Benjamin F. Butler), they served a useful political function. Lincoln regarded their appointment as an indispensable investment in national unity. Naturally, Democrats were more likely to support the administration if their leaders became high-ranking military officers. In the spring of 1861, Democrats in one Illinois town threw rocks at army recruits marching off to war and said they hoped all the “dam[ned] black Republicans would be killed.” But when Democratic Congressman William R. Morrison received a colonel’s commission and undertook to raise a regiment, Democrats stopped complaining about a “horrible, unjust war.”152 Some Democratic generals, like John A. Logan, proved to be highly capable military leaders.
At the president’s invitation, Schurz called at the White House to discuss matters further. “Now tell me, young man, whether you really think that I am as poor a fellow as you have made me out in your letter!” Lincoln exclaimed. After a friendly explanation of his policies, the president slapped Schurz’s knee, laughed, and asked: “Didn’t I give it to you hard in my letter? Didn’t I? But it didn’t hurt, did it? I did not mean to, and therefore I wanted you to come so quickly.” He suggested that the general, whom Lincoln regarded as a kind of surrogate son, continue writing him. The brash Teuton often did so.153
Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 2 Page 78
